Some guy today mentioned he was in a band to me and I watched him get visibly uncomfortable when I didn’t ask him anything about it. He kept trying to bring the conversation around to his band and I wasn’t budging.
POWER MOVE: Complete and utter disinterest in men’s obsession with their own mediocrity
The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost; for none now live who remember it.
Story concept: an orphanage/group home for chosen ones whose families were killed by ~destiny~
It’s run by a chosen heroine whose adventure was 2 decades ago and the sweet team-mom healer from her team, who she has since married.
It’s mostly trope comedy with moments of real emotion, here are some ideas for kids:
—two teenaged boys who WERE barreling towards a tragic rivalry that ends in one of them falling to darkness… until one of them confessed that he was just trying to show off because he has a crush on the other one. They’re now dating and the comedy comes from the universe CONSTANTLY trying to get them to fight and failing.
—an eight year old who keeps tattling on the demons who are whispering to her and then getting into sibling fights with them
—a brooding, edgy fire-wielding boy and a brooding, edgy fire-wielding girl who can’t figure out which mystical signs belong to who
—like six kids named Hope who go by names like “Pink Hope”, “Hope the second” and “I’ve been told I’m not allowed to shorten my name to ‘Ho’ so I will now be going by Dick just to spite them”
IDK if I’m going to write this but it’s fun to worldbuild so here’s some more!
The two fire kids have a big age gap, with the girl being 10 and the boy being 17. They spend so much time together trying to untangle their destinies that they wind up developing a brother-sister relationship. The girl is one of the Hopes and the boy’s name is Fox, which results in the following exchange being commonplace.
A: so then Hope—
B: which Hope?
A: oh, baby fox.
Oh, character consolidation idea: Fox is also one of the boys who dodged a fatal rivalry, obviously being the ‘tempted to the dark side’ half of the equation. His full name is Foxglove, and his boyfriend’s name is Raven. Raven is the one to confess and Fox was so shocked he needed to sit down for like 5 minutes to re-evaluate his entire perspective on reality.
Fox is the EPITOME of “oh shit, I didn’t hate him, I was just gay.”
Fox two years ago: Whenever he laughs I get all sweaty and agitated, and that stupid ‘oh look at me I’m so handsome’ grin is so obnoxious it bothers me for hours after I have talk to the guy! God, Raven’s the worst.
Fox now: yeah, turns out the only thing I hated about Raven is that he wasn’t kissing me right that second
The owner’s wife is a subversion on the “cute, sweet, gentle healer love interest who dies in act 2” trope, and her name is Maribelle. She’s just under five feet tall and built like somebody replaced all her bones with toothpicks— she’s TINY.
She is also, as the villain discovered in spectacularly violent fashion when he kidnapped her, the most dangerous member of the party by far.
Because she ISN’T a cleric and she wasn’t using light magic at all. She uses raw magic, which is a rare talent for humans because it’s hard to control and tends to destroy the weirder before their enemies. Maribelle’s love for her friends was LITERALLY the source of her healing magic, because she uses her emotions to shape her spells.
On the other side of that, the emotions associated with trapping her and threatening to kill her girlfriend? She WRECKED him and took the whole hideout down in the process.
OKAY I named the woman who runs the place, her name is Summer!
A lot of people just know her as “the farner’s daughter” because her particular journey of heroics started with a prophecy that said a farmer’s eldest daughter would bring about the death of the tyrannical king. Which, uh, she did, except that it was Maribelle who killed the guy in Summer’s defense.
A prophet rolls in on wheely shoes with a starbucks Frappuccino: IT TECHNICALLY WASN’T WRONG!
Toby is up and fighting within minutes of an injury that would kill a human: Take a drink.
Toby is up and fighting within minutes of an injury that would kill a full-blood fae: Take two drinks.
Seanan starts repeating descriptions of just how bad pain can get: Finish your drink.
Someone is a dick to pixies: Take a drink.
Tybalt quotes Shakespeare: Take a sip.
Quentin sasses his knight: Take a sip.
You want to pet Raj, and it might be worth losing a hand for it: Take a drink.
Someone around Toby is lying about who they are: Take a drink.
Various authority figures already knew about the lie: Take two drinks.
A teenager is kidnapped: Take a drink.
The teenager is Toby’s family: Finish your drink.
Bridge Troll Taxi Service: One sip per barghest.
Dianda has to be restrained from killing someone: Toast the only woman with any sense here.
Deus Ex Luidaeg: Finish the bottle on her behalf.
I would like to note that “Dianda has to be restrained from killing someone: Toast the only woman with any sense here.“ is maybe the most accurate thing anyone will ever say.
Hey can I just say that it’s utterly fucked that George RR Martin and Patrick Rothfuss are revered as gods of modern fantasy writing when neither of them has been able to produce a book in years and they also can’t write women
plus George RR Martin just copied wars of the roses
and Rothfuss made a legit plot point that Kvothe fucked a fairy for months
I’m not saying that I don’t enjoy these books, because I do, but I am just saying that I read fantasy books 10x better by women all the time.
meanwhile, there are so many female fantasy authors who produce brilliant work, but because it is marketed towards women, it’s either YA or it’s paranormal romance (BOTH OF WHICH I STAN OK) and therefore doesn’t get considered “serious” fantasy even though they have better world building, magic, and writing style than most “masters of the genre.”
like, why is it that fantasy books written about women and by women are ONLY READ BY WOMEN AND MARKETED TO WOMEN, meanwhile fantasy books written by men about men are READ BY EVERYONE AND MARKETED AS THE NORM.
like male fantasy nerds are just sleeping on Ilona Andrews because they write about women and add a romance plot line, meanwhile Kate Daniels is one of the best damn fantasy series I have ever read with some of the best world building and plotting e v e r.
And I’m not implying that authors have to produce 3 books a year to be serious authors, but it’s a bit ridiculous that the fantasy genre and pub industry keeps pushing asoiaf and kingkiller chronicles at us when we don’t even have a date for the sequel. WHY DON’T YOU PROMOTE BOOKS BY WOMEN WHO KNOW HOW TO WRITE GOOD FEMALE CHARACTERS?? WHY NOT PROMOTE FANTASY BOOKS BY AUTHORS OF COLOR??
WHY IS FANTASY ON THE SAME WHITE MAN BULLSHIT ALL THE TIME????
One of my favorite fantasy series of all time is N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy. In which every book in the series has won a fucking hugo award! but do you see it getting the same amount of press that these male fantasy authors do? no. and that pisses me off because her books have such amazing fleshed out female (and male) characters and a complex world.
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